David Gillingham has an international reputation for the works he has written for band and percussion. Many of these works are now considered standards in the repertoire. His works are regularly performed by nationally recognized ensembles including the Prague Radio Orchestra, Cincinnati Conservatory of Music Wind Ensemble, North Texas University Wind Ensemble, Michigan State University Wind Ensemble, University of Illinois Symphonic Band, and many others. Gillingham is a professor of music at Central Michigan University and the recipient of an Excellence in Teaching Award (1990), a Summer Fellowship (1991), and a Research Professorship (1995). His Symphony No. 2, "Genesis" (2007) is a programmatic piece based on the first nine chapters of Genesis. Watch it performed by the J.B. Castle H.S. Symphonic Wind Ensemble, with Arnold A. Alconcel conducting . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

Augusta Read Thomas’ deeply personal music is guided by her particular sense of musical form, rhythm, timbre and harmony. She was the Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from May 1997 through June 2006, a residency that encompassed nine world premieres, culminating in the premiere of her concerto for violin, flute and orchestra entitled "Astral Canticle" - one of two finalists for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Music. Her 2001 work for string ensemble Murmurs in the Mist of Memory is a 4-movement piece that possesses a wide spectrum of nuance, at times lyrical, abstract, passionate, subtle, vivid, aggressive, colorful, floating, rhythmic, elegant, clean, or light. Each movement features a different attribute of the string soloists' phenomenal technique — individual and collective — left hand as well as bow arm. The aim is to capture, concisely, a specific "universe" or "mood" in each movement, such that the musicians can escort the listener through a mini suite of diverse expeditions into remembrances. Each of the movements is inspired by a poem of Emily Dickinson, with each poem revealing impressions of light. Hear a performance of Murmurs in the Mist of Memory by the Sejong Soloists, Great Mountains Music Festival, South Korea . . . one of our PYTHEAS EARFULS this week.

David Lang writes about his piece Face So Pale (1992), "At the top of the fifteenth-century charts was Guillaume Dufay’s ballade 'Se la face ay pale' (If my face is pale). My piece 'Face So Pale' takes Dufay’s famous love song, subjects it to numerous pulling and stretching procedures, and divides the original three parts among six pianos. The result is a bizarre equilibrium between the spaciousness of the actual music and the stuttering mechanism by which it is made." Watch a performace of Face So Pale arranged for 6 marimbas by Brad Meyer and the UKPG . . this week's NEW MUSIC FOR PERCUSSION.

Composer Elena Ruehr grew up in Michigan’s isolated and beautiful Upper Peninsula. Her musical training began at home, where she learned folk songs from her mother, who sang and played guitar. Her father, a mathematician, played jazz piano and listened to the Beethoven and Bartok string quartets while solving equations. Her older brothers brought home recordings of Morton Sobotnik and Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin and Paul Simon. Ruehr started playing the piano and composing at age four. As a teenager, Ruehr worked as a church organist, rock-band keyboardist/singer and musical director of the local university’s theater troupe. She studied at the University of Michigan and Juilliard, and now is a professor in the MIT music department. Her song cycle lullabies and spring songs (1998) is based on the poetry of Langston Hughes. Hear a performance of Stars, from lullabies and spring songs (1998) by baritone Stephen Salters and pianist David Zobel . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music